


No Great Hero

by TheBritishGovernment, TheExplodingPen



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 11 looking back, Gen, Oneshot, dark!Doctor, it's dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBritishGovernment/pseuds/TheBritishGovernment, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark!Doctor looks back at his companions, and what made them break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Great Hero

The Doctor. That's what people called him. The truth was that he had given up that name a long time ago. The only reason he still insisted on being called it was because it was so endearing. It made people think he was safe, made them think he wanted to save the universe and fix everything and make sure everyone lived to see old age. The funny thing was that he had given up on the universe a long time ago, and frankly, he broke things far more often than he fixed them.

He built, and he destroyed. He didn't heal. He didn't fix. He didn't save. He built something up so high that the inevitable fall was always just around the corner. Things fell, and they crashed, and they burned like a lost planet at the end of a war. That was the only reason he took people into the TARDIS. He didn't want to show them the stars, not really. He was in it for the endgame. He would build them up so high, show them so much, that when he gave them that tiniest of pushes, they would fall so splendidly.

And the best part was that they would beg to be broken again and again and again. 

Rose had been easy. Fun, almost. He had simply planned on taking her away, making her despise her real life, her boyfriend, her mother, and even the very earth that she had called home for her entire life. Then he would leave her there. Stuck with no way back to the cosmos she had grown addicted to. But she had been more stubborn that he had been prepared for, and she had gone back for him. That was fine, of course, because the higher they were, they harder they fell.

So he had made the girl fall for him. A look here, a touch there, and it was oh so easy. She was already half in love with him. So, he built her up, made her love him more than life itself, and then he locked her in another dimension with a half-finished “confession” and the memory of all that could have been.

Martha didn't have a big, spectacular fall, no but he slowly tore her apart and that was just as good. She loved him. Or, at least, she thought she did, and he knew how to play his companions and make that emotion that the humans craved so much hurt and make them bleed and sob and no longer fear death, but welcome it. He played that game with her, and like with all the others, he won. He didn't leave her with a deep and unrelenting depression, as he usually did, but the tears and pain added up to a win for him.

And then, there was Donna. Oh, Donna. She had thrown him off for a while. She looked like an easy enough target, just like the others, but he'd forgotten how much _fire_ the gingers had in them. She was definitely different, almost a challenge. Almost. But her end was more than worth the fight, the acting, the charade he put on for her because watching the woman cry and beg for her brain to be _ended_ just so that she wouldn't forget him... oh, that was precious. That was sweet.

Amy and Rory were next.

Amy was so easy. Too easy, for him. He had planned to just find a little girl and leave her with hope and an empty promise, but then he went back and she attached herself to him shamelessly, and he couldn't resist. So he took her, made her question the love she had for the awkward blonde, the love that she already thought of as a mistake if the way she left him was any indication. And then he got Rory. Brought him along to watch his Amelia Pond, his one true love, fall for “The Doctor.”

And then, she didn't. She held tightly to Rory and he found himself with another little challenge. So, quickly and without remorse, he broke them. He killed Rory so many times he lost count. He had Amy kidnapped so many times that even her precious Rory began to forget the number. Then he “killed” himself to restart the universe and tore them both to pieces, watching as their lives burned around them. It was adorable, really. He'd arrange the last night he had as best he could for his grand finale. They deserved something that was significant to him – something that would tear and rip at them would be the only thing sufficient to make him happy with their end.

And River.

Oh, River, River, River. He didn't love River, and she certainly never loved him. Whatever the others saw in their eyes or read in their gestures were simply wishful human thinking. They were just two Time Lords with eternity on their hands and the trust of the humans foolish enough to ride with them. 

Most recently, there was Clara. She was a nuisance, really. She had done everything she could to stay with him, even jumping back in time to save him over and over again. And that simply could not continue. So he went and retrieved her from his time stream just like the good little hero she thought he was.

That moment, standing in front of River and Vastra and Strax and Jenny... that was when he decided how he was going to play with little Clara. The plan formed quickly in his head. He would slowly show her that he wasn't the hero she thought he was. He would teach her that he was the monster she feared and hated, and that she had volunteered to save that monster. Over and over again.

She hadn't lasted a year.

Now he was left to find himself a brand new toy. The girl he was watching now would follow him without issue. He knew that much. She already believed in something other than her own planet, and she believed in some great hero who would take her away and show her the universe. She thought there was some mad man in a blue box who would mourn here when she left and remember her in eternity.

But there was no great hero coming to save here.

There was only him.


End file.
